Chapter Text
"That leaves it open for no regret—no fear radiators, lacklove,
torture even toothache in the end—
Though while it comes it is a lion that eats the soul—and the lamb, the soul,
in us, alas, offering itself in sacrifice to change's fierce hunger--hair
and teeth—and the roar of bonepain, skull bare, break rib, rot-skin,
braintricked Implacability.”
KADDISH, PART I, Allen Ginsberg
Itself a Sacrifice To Change’s Fierce Hunger
“Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.” - W.H. Auden
As the last of the petitioners filed out their small feelings of gratitude, frustration, elation, and disappointment fled with them leaving Lord Voldemort alone with his own feelings and thoughts once more. Petition days exhausted him, the long, slow hours of managing other people’s feelings and making decisions about the pettiest of minutiae.
The sort he usually avoided by having appointed his ambitious and slippery follower into the role of Regent Malfoy, relying on the power that granted the small-minded man to keep him in line.
Still, kings must be seen by their subjects. The wizened Dumbledore was useful for very little before his death but he had taught a young boy that much.
Now Voldemort drew a bath with a wave of his wand, the water bubbling and promising a bone-deep relaxation as he sunk into his nightly rituals. First, though, the mirror…
§Rise.§ The mirror’s frame undulated, raising with a hiss as it twisted into a circle. A snake, eating its own tail. Eternity. He smiled.
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the most powerful of them all?”
The cloudy surface boiled, the moment lasting a few seconds, an eternity, and Voldemort narrowed his eyes. Black hair resolved first and green eyes, as he expected, but then… this face was youthful and bespeckled.
This face was not his.
§Are you certain?§
The mirror hissed its displeasure, the answer more a feeling than any words. It was certain. How fascinating.
§Find him.§
The surface boiled again expectedly and twisted, turning over and over, image after image, as it tracked itself from here to there. And finally a small cabin, practically a shack, in the woods the young man stood, bare-chested, an axe raised above his head for chopping wood. A woodsman? Rivalling him?
I shall have to see this for myself.
Ϟ
The edge of the Hallows loomed large, dark and unwelcoming for each path in. But he, who had traversed the Cave of Infernal Death, who had searched the forests of Albania for the Lost Diadiem of Knowledge, who had gone farther along Death’s Path than any had dared before, would not be discouraged.
He spun his spell of blending, each painstakingly placed layer one moment closer to convincing the Hallow that he was of it, and finally, with a last rustle of displeasure, a path opened to him. He took it.
Night fell as he walked and, towards the midnight hour, he rested, allowing himself some few hours of sleep while his faithful Nagini kept watch. Towards dawn, he awoke and continued towards the centre of the Hallows. Only one cloaked in pure magic or a Peverell could go so far into the heart of this magic woods.
There had been rumours…
Had Dumbledore done it? Had he managed to conceal away the boy who had, supposedly, died along with his mother on the birthing bed? The very incident that allowed Voldemort to take the land without a true fight when good King James died shortly after of heart-sickness (of all the weaknesses).
The prince. Oh! Voldemort smiled, a sweet thing to charm and deceive, to hide away his sense of triumph. If it was … then there were better uses for the boy than death.
§I scent him, Master! A two-legged!§ Nagini’s tail lashed back and forth excitedly. §I’ll bite him for you!§
He pet her head. §Not yet. He may yet be useful to your master. For now, go look, see if it is the boy I showed in your mind. If so, watch him for an hour and return to me.§
She slithered away at once and he settled for a repose, bringing out a prepared box to break his fast. Some time later she returned.
§It’s him! It’s him! And he can speak!§
Voldemort frowned. He hardly thought the boy would be a mute -- §To you? Show me!§
The vision that came when her slitted eyes met his made Voldemort’s very nerves go aflame. The boy could speak to snakes. And he had been kind, offering her the cut-offs from a rabbit he was skinning and pointing her to a rock nearby that she might sun herself on.
The mirror’s vision made more sense now. The boy was the last of the Peverells from Ignotus’s line. Of course he would have that power. And the cloak. Oh, he should have the cloak. Now Voldemort broke into a truthful grin, more vicious and cruel than his practised ones, and stood.
Breaking this lost prince should be fun.
Ϟ
A lot of people had tried breaking Harry Potter over the years, not that a far off king with much more important things to deal with would know that.
There’d been his Aunt, with her stinging words and sharp blows. His Uncle who, once, tried to drown him in the stream and then, when the stream tried to drown him back, settled for a lot of shoving and overwork. His cousin Dudley, who was too dumb to realise every time he truly injured the small boy in his parents’ care, unfortunate things tended to befall him.
And as Harry grew the number of people trying to break him grew with him. Dudley’s toady friends greatly enjoyed games of Harry Hunting until, oddly, one by one they fell under the unsettling and inescapable sensation that they, too, were being hunted. The Weasleys, who noticed the bruises and the constant hunger and the occasional slip about things drilled into his head he should never have mentioned, but who never did much more than slip him some extra dinner until his coming into an unexpected inheritance soured his friendship with their youngest son and ended that relationship.
The townspeople who whispered and gossiped about there was just something not quite right about that strange, quiet boy who lived with the nice, normal Dursleys. Just look at his eyes. Nothing natural had eyes so green.
Really, pretty much the only humans who hadn’t let him down so far in his short life could be counted on one hand with most of his fingers left over. His scholarly friend Hermione who spent much too much of her time with her nose stuck in a book for his liking loved to teach him new things and found his oddities more endearing than distressing. And his sweet if troubled friend Luna, who he bonded with over bullying, loved to help him explore the Hallows, going out further and farther each time he brought her in. (He might have brought a few of her bullies in too but the Hallows took care of that.)
But the thing that finally found him disgustedly retreating into the forest that had always been his refuge was when a wizened old man came up to him one day. The old man, it turned out, was quite dying from an incurable curse rotting him up from his left hand towards his heart. The man, he said, was a friend of Harry’s dead parents and he, personally, had made certain to have Harry placed in a safe and hidden home far away from his true home.
See, Harry was a prince. And a wizard (he worked that one out on his own, thanks). And he had a grand destiny to take down the evil wizard and current king, Lord Voldemort.
Apparently, he’d been hidden away so that Voldemort wouldn’t kill him in the cradle to take out the rightful heir to the throne. And now that he was older and stronger and had come into his powers (and the old man was dying) it was the perfect time to train him for this destiny.
Harry did the sensible thing. He said he needed time to think about what this meant, asked the man to come back three days hence, and was sprucing up the decrepit shack he’d found deep in the Hallows by nightfall. If it shrieked a little bit when it was feeling frisky, well, Harry learned how to make a spell of silence right quick. And he put the old man out of his mind save to hope, in an absent sort of way, that the Hallows ate him too.
Really, people were usually more trouble than they were worth.
Ϟ
Now, on the All Hallow’s Eve after his 21st Naming Day, Harry stretched a runic working over one of two long wood tables and prepared his offerings on the other. Tonight he would go to the blood lake at the foot of the highest peak in the Hallows and light a fire with his offerings to Morgingu.
He’d found so little of the old teachings even as Hermione scoured book after book for some understanding of his strange skill. Lord Voldemort had, shortly after beginning his reign, collected the old tomes into a library and, it was said, one must prove their skill to him if they wished to learn.
So Harry survived on drips and drabbles, piecing together the knowledge that remained with the wisdom of the Hallows whispering in his ear and his own innate skills guiding his way.
» Be kind to the serpent. »
Harry lifted his head to listen for the wind but the Hallows said nothing else. Soon a mighty snake, deep green scales glistening in the sunlight, slithered up the path towards his home. Interesting. Snakes rarely used paths. People disguised as snakes, however, would be different. The Hallows warning made more sense that way.
Harry, after all, was always kind to animals. One might hurt you, if they were injured or cornered or desperately hungry, but they wouldn’t do so with malice in mind. That certainly put them higher than humans.
§Mmm, rabbit. I want rabbit. The human’s rabbit smells good.§
Harry smiled and reached over to the bones he planned to throw out, having little use for them with them being too small for him to easily get the marrow out of. On a whim, he added a tidbit he had planned to eat. He still had plenty. He threw it to the snake, who reared up, startling.
§You’re welcome to those bits. Please don’t steal the rest. And there’s a rock a bit over there --” He pointed with his messy hand. “-- that seems to be a popular place for sunning.§
She eyed him for a long time, her clear eyelids blinking steadily. Finally, her head bobbed and she unhinged her jaw to gobble up the bones, the meat, and all, before going over to sun herself. Harry returned to the rabbit and, when he’d stripped the fat off the skin, collecting it for lamp oil, and left the fur out to dry he cleaned his hands and moved onto tending the herbs he picked for tonight. One strangely behaving snake wasn’t going to upend his plans for tonight.
The serpent left while he went inside for his book on rituals and he was skimming it for the right way to prepare the ritual smudge brush when he heard the telltale sound of footsteps. He checked his knife, sheath nailed in under the table, and only pretended to keep reading.
Anyone who could make it this far into the Hallows on Hallow’s Eve without his aid must be interesting.
Ϟ
Harry made a hobby of getting the lay of people. Not judging them, as he had once been sorely judged, but a quick assessment of a person’s intent. Were they in their cups? The easiest sign to measure... Too quick to smile? Too quick to temper? How did they hold themselves?
Were they looking for a fight?
This man, whoever he was and however he’d gotten into the Hallows (Harry did not rule out the Hallows felt he needed company -- it kept letting Luna in, after all), did not seem to be looking for a fight. He was clean-shaven and adorned in a plain but finely made cloak with woodsman leathers underneath. A planner, then? Or lucky chance?
“I don’t get many visitors,” he said, one hand sorting the herbs, one eye kept upon the stranger.
Striding with purpose, the serpent (perhaps truly just a serpent, then) slithering along at his feet until she once again returned to the sunning rock, the man approached. Unafraid even in the heart of the Hallows and very, very interested in assessing Harry back.
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t here,” the man agreed, glancing at the well water still freshly collected and clear of insect life. Then the cup set aside. “May I?”
Attractive, he supposed. Indeterminate age. It never harmed to start with politeness. “As you like.”
The stranger drank. “My thanks. It’s quite a walk.” More than a day with no steed. He’d survived the Hallows at night, then. Harry added ‘dangerous’ to the list. “Are you a forest sprite? I heard tales that no man could survive the Hallows.”
“Tales exaggerate, that’s what makes them tales. I’m a seeker. I find things for people.”
People in desperate need, missing children, missing parts of themselves, missing wards of protection from those who would do them harm before their good work could be done, sometimes tripped into his section of the Hallows when they thought they were on the much safer path.
“Then you are Harry.” Harry tensed. “I’m seeking something and I heard -- But, as you say, tales exaggerate.” The man only almost smiled, more a sensation of pleasure in the turn of his face.
The wind whispered twisted around him, building and billowing, a whisper becoming a roar.
» You are like. You are mine. Show him that he seeks. »
Harry settled down his wind-blown herbs, separating them once more. In all the years, in all the times it hid and helped him, the Hallows asked only that he be a good neighbour, take no more than he need, and come back. Come back, come back, always come back.
“What is it you seek?” Harry lifted an eyebrow. “I make no promise of aid but only of secrecy. Whether or not I take up the seeking I tell no one what was requested of me, not to any that ask.” He gestured, a ‘show me’ sort of thing inviting this stranger to lay down his cards.
“I can pay you handsomely for this service.”
Harry smiled, a little flit of a thing. “The question is less what I shall be paid and more what you shall pay the Hallows. Well, good sir?”
“An elder tree.”
No, not an elder tree. The elder tree. Harry straightened. “I see.” The man who had not precisely been slouching but had taken on an air of relaxation straightened as well. The serpent lifted her head. “On the morrow.”
Slowly, as if Harry were skittish, the man approached the bench with the runic board and the herb bundles. “Hallowmas. I thought the tradition all but forgotten.”
Harry gripped the underside of the table, as if merely leaning, his finger stroking along the reassuring grip of his dagger as he replied, “Dear sir, we are in the Hallows. Nothing is forgotten here. Lost, sometimes, and hidden more than that, but not forgotten.”
And the stranger smiled, trailing his own finger high enough above the carved runes to avoid the magic inherent in them. Then he said the strangest thing thus far, “That one is wrong. You have it in reverse.”
Harry blinked. Well, then.
Ϟ
For all that Lord Voldemort could correct the young man’s scripture, the mistake was more a misspelling than a misunderstanding of the technique. As a protective inscription, it would do well.
“Who taught you runic warding?”
A delicate shoulder shrugged. “It came to me in a dream not long after I came to live here. So far it’s worked.”
Voldemort hummed. “You will take me to the tree on the morrow, then. Tonight I will join you for Hallowmas.”
The man frowned, his cupid bow lips pulling down in consternation, but Voldemort ignored him to clean up his herb workings. Those could use some improvement. Soon dinner time came and the boy invited him to join, then they gathered up the materials and set out for a path even more hostile looking than its fellows.
Two hours passed and while Voldemort wondered many things he allowed them to stay in silence. His answers could wait ‘til morrow. At the edge of the day, as twilight began to consider a stay, they reached a lake so darkly red it reminded Voldemort of blood.
Another legend. Another rumour. Another lost thing found. He seemed to be collecting them today.
“This is a good choice,” he praised the boy, who went fetchingly pink about the cheeks.
Between land and water, low ground and high peak, this was an in-between place, a place for ritual, and what a ritual one could do in a place such as this on a night like tonight. Together they gathered the deadwood and the fallen autumn leaves for a bonfire that rose ever higher and more brightly than a natural fire burned. Alone they each set-up a makeshift altar.
So distracted was young Harry, so carefully watched by Nagini for any indication of his attention straying (brought back by a ‘helpful’ question from her slippery mind if he was ever tempted to do so) that he did not see his lord’s preparations.
As twilight fell, the child of the woods began his invocation of Morrígu, calling upon the great huntress to protect the forest. His power grew with burning intensity, heating the cool late autumn air and drawing a shortness in Voldemort’s very breath.
Though that might have been anticipation.
And as the ritual crested, as the lithe young man hunched over, panting, spent in his exertion, Voldemort twisted a sorcery borne of his ancestors and snapped shut his trap. The runic circle warped as a whirlwind and fell upon the young prince’s own circle, locking their magics together.
§I bind you. Your house to mine, your line to mine. I bind you. Your hand to mine, your life to mine. I bind you. For a year and a day, I bind you.§
He really wasn’t surprised when the next words out of the boy’s mouth were, “What. The. Fuck?”
Ϟ
Lord Voldemort raised one unimpressed eyebrow and started, “Well, I --”
A hand slammed up as hard as a slap and a growled, “I wasn’t speaking to you,” brought some curious instinct of his into play. He meant to glance around, to show they were alone, when the wind began to pitch and wail.
Scattered leaves swirled in the crackling of the bonfire light, a tempest in a teapot, and all around the furious young man naught but calm. The wizardling sighed, lifting to his knees and then his feet, nearly hidden from Voldemort’s view, and his shoulders rolled back before he disappeared entirely from sight.
And then, as suddenly as it came, the wind retreated. The leaves taking to gravity once more as the other man watched him with a quietude of spirit that might have made other, weaker men worry for their safety. “I wasn’t speaking to you,” said Harry, now a sigh. “Within these woods I am safe from magical attack. That is the agreement between the Hallows and I, its favoured child. But it doesn’t think what you just did is an attack.”
“You disagree?”
“Well, my magical knowledge is a bit spotty, I’ll admit. But, correct me if I’m wrong, you went ahead and bound our fates together from this All Hallows’ Eve to next Hallowmas without bothering to ask. Would you see that as an attack?”
“Oh, undoubtedly.” Voldemort spread his hands in front of him, a challenge, and the young man snorted.
And hummed. “You never did give me your name but… it’s Voldemort, is it not?” He cocked his head. “I’ve never seen a picture before but the Hallows knows all that walk its path and your name is Voldemort… and Riddle… and Thomas… my Lord.” The last he smirked.
Voldemort smiled back, taking a step closer and another. The slighter man stayed firm. “I prefer Voldemort but my lord will certainly do.”
“Did you know I was prophesied to kill you?” The king’s chest froze and the green eyes, nearly glowing in the sputtering remnants of twilight, widened with mirth. “You didn’t!”
I should have let Nagini bite him. Voldemort stood silently, judging, doubtful in a way that encouraged men to explain themselves, but Harry merely waved a hand, dismissing the idea.
Finally, because he had no choice without wreaking violence, Voldemort dismissed it too. “It hardly matters for a year and a day.”
A quiet hum and the boy knelt down to start cleaning his circle, collecting the herbs and flowers to take to the fire. He smudged out the runes copied onto the shore of the blood lake and rolled up the thin strip of carved wood he’d used for his compass as if Voldemort weren’t even there. And a generous lord such was he that Voldemort allowed this instead of wringing the answers from his very mind.
§The hatchling scents of anger, Master.§ Nagini said, twining her way around his booted feet.
§He’ll adjust to his change of circumstance.§ Harry’s back went ramrod straight and a rock flew at Voldemort’s head, who caught it lazily. From behind his head, in the opposite direction from the boy, and yet another direction from which the boy had been looking. That made this the cheeriest Voldemort’s ever been at having something thrown at him. Clever boy. That’s a battlefield technique. I wonder where he learned that. “Eventually.”
§He smells like he wants to bite you.§
She’s not wrong and he slicks a hand down her scales, flicking his hand out to warm a rock nearby where she settles in with a hiss of pleasure.
“Who prophesied your killing me?”
Harry laughed. “Haven’t a clue.”
“Then how do you know there is a prophecy?”
“Old, old man, quite tall, never met two colours he didn’t enjoy putting tog --” A rather larger rock slammed into a boulder nearby. “I see you know him then.”
“Dumbledore,” he hissed. “Where is he now?’”
“Dead, probably. His hand was rotting. Also, it’s a tad bit possible the Hallows ate him. It does that to people that annoy me.” Harry pursed his lips in what, in a boy a few years younger, might be called an adorable pout. “Present company excluded.”
Voldemort smiled gently, a kingly smile one might say, and told him, “Behave as you wish but consider this. For the next year, you’ll want for nothing and, assuming we can come to terms, one year from now you’ll walk away from me with a tidy sum and your safety.”
“Or a marriage contract.” He blinked and green eyes blinked back at him. “That was a betrothal binding you did back there, wasn’t it? That’s why it’s a year and a day?”
Well. Damned if it wasn’t.
Somewhere Abraxas was laughing and hadn’t the faintest idea why.
Ϟ
Harry longed to rage, to throw his anger at the presumptuous king out like knives, but he packed those knives away for tending later. Tonight he had a task to do.
As the night went on Voldemort, for all his lordling manners and general attitude, became helpful, if not solicitous, aiding Harry in the burning of the bonfire and the smudgings. A second circle was laid, deep into the late hours, as the quiet clock in his head began to tick over to midnight. To Hallowmas proper.
His nose scrunched up in distaste and he blew out a breath, noting Voldemort’s curious look and careful examination of the circle. “I see no sacrifice.”
“I don’t like to bring one with me, alive and awaiting its fate as the magic builds. It seems cruel,” Harry admitted. “But I can put it off no longer.”
“Or -- Must this be by your hands?”
He frowned. He’d laid the circle. It was his magic imbued in the sand and the runic stones he’d brought from home, his blood smeared in careful droplets, but his bloodletting was done.
» Let him. » whispered the Hallows.
I’m still angry with you, he thought firmly at it but human anger often meant nothing to the ancient power. Even his. “No, you can do it. It has to be a mammal. It cannot be a predator.”
“A rabbit then. Or rodent.” He nodded and Voldemort strode towards the woods, raising his hands in a complicated twist that brought, with little difficulty, a hare to hand. Male, at the tail end of breeding age, the best choice all considered.
Harry felt the rapid tat-tat-tat of the buck’s heart, frozen in its fear. Magic swirled again… to soothe it and the soul stopped screaming out in terror.
“If it dies of fright its all for naught,” Voldemort said quietly, still soothing the hare, drawing it closer into the circle. He stepped expertly over the magic and knelt quite carefully in the centre. Harry had made a circle for his size and Voldemort was quite a bit larger.
The incantation he chose meant nothing to Harry, in a tongue he didn’t recognise, but the Hallows’ thrummed with its approval of the choice so he said nothing. A knife appeared from inside the cloak and the rabbit screamed before falling silent. The plop-plop-plop of innards splattered in the circle, splattered the king’s fine cloak, and lightning crackled in the distance.
A thunderous boom and then a flash as bright as day, the flash of faces long gone and going. The first time this happened it terrified him but he understood now. Why the Hallows’ asked it, why it must be done.
Tick-tick-tick. Harry picked up his satchel and took it to a large, flat stone at the foot of the mountain.
“What’s that there?” Voldemort asked, coming up behind him slowly.
“The rest and nothing more. I need to work now. Bring me the rabbit and lay it there. Then be quiet or be gone.” He could see, when he glanced back, in the heat of the man’s face and a flash of his eyes that this lord, this king, was not used to being ordered around but Harry turned away. This was his home and while the Hallow might not have protected him to his liking it would, it had promised, protect him from any attack of malice.
Apparently, Voldemort simply hadn’t been malicious enough in binding Harry. He and the Hallows would simply have to agree to disagree on that.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the rabbit being laid at his feet and he reached down to pull out the heart, a phantom beat in his palm from the magic still stirring through it.
He put the heart down and reached into his bag. First, the pomegranate the Hallows provided him, in its whimsy (living in a sentient forest could be a bit troubling on the nerves), and then the apple picked from his own tree.
The thrice-tied branches of yew formed into a triangle, the holly berries plucked from the first bloom and preserved, settled into a circle in the centre. From the corner of his eye, he saw the rabbit being laid at his feet and he reached down to pull out the heart, a phantom beat in his palm from the magic still stirring through it. That he set on the bed of holly. And finally, a single branch of the elder tree breaking down the middle.
On one side he set the pomegranate, on the other the apple, and then he went to wash his hands in the lake, ensuring that his palms looked stained with blood.
“What is this ritual?” Voldemort asked quietly, no demand in his tone.
Because he did not demand Harry would have given him an answer -- if he could have. Instead, he shrugged. “I dreamed it in the month before last Hallowmas. I knew then I should do it.”
“You don’t know what it does?” Chastisement brokered in that tone and Harry peered at him, in the deep darkness of the night, lit only by the bright blaze still burning on the shore.
“Says the man who bound himself to the one prophesied to kill him without knowing it.” He laughed, a short, quiet thing. “I know enough.”
Lightning crashed again, a howl of wind, and the thundering not of storms but of hooves. Voldemort’s eyes gleamed even in the low light. “Tales say the Hunt rides here.”
“Sometimes tales tell true. Now, shh.”
Harry unwrapped the dagger made of basilisk fang, the blade carved, the tip frightfully sharp, and the edge whittled down with magic to do as thin as a blade of grass. A deadly thing in any hands but the handle carved for his and changing, ever so slowly, as his hands grew into a man’s size. Another gift from the Hallows.
Carefully he carved open the pomegranate, allowing the blood red pulp to fall into the left side of the triangle. Then he split the apple at the centre, plucking out the seeds with the tip of the dagger until they rested in a small pile on the right side of the triangle.
Balance in all things.
» Now you know what you must do. »
Harry breathed deeply, did not allow the storm inside of him to rise tonight of all nights when storm would call to storm and bring down the Hunt. Stupid match-making, ancient sentient forest pain in the arse.
He stepped back and spoke in magic -- not words, precisely, nor sounds, exactly, but hearable, knowable to the powers here. He wrapped the altar in his magic and watched it ripple, the air above it thick and swelling, choking out their vision and stealing the breath from their lungs. And then, finally then, when he thought he might collapse, that his lungs might burst, the magic broke and air came back into the world.
He gasped, hands on his knees, his head hung down as he regained himself. By the time he straightened Voldemort had already reached for the … charm?
Harry leaned forward. The offering was a fourth the size it began and solid in its nature. The pomegranate seeds had dried and thinned, creating a wall, and the apple seeds had sprouted into the thin film of an apple with seeds set in. He stared at it, grabbing Voldemort’s hand away before contact could be made, and probed it with its senses.
The Hallows. Of course. It would never let him go.
“It’s a vessel charm,” Voldemort said with wonder.
Harry sighed. “I will sit vigil until dawn as I intended to do. At dawn, we leave for the elder tree.”
“And the charm?”
He smiled mirthlessly. “It wants to be worn. If you wish to have it --”
“I do. For you.” The older man went over to his pack, pulling out a thin cord made of braided leather. “I brought it on an impulse. It belongs with that. It belongs with you.” He put the object together with careful hands and magic so delicate Harry could only imagine how it was done, and then he was placing it -- without asking, of course -- around Harry’s neck.
The charm flared with warmth as he tucked it underneath his thick autumn sweater and his fingers played over the cord.
“You need a teacher,” Voldemort told him, his hand reaching out, heedful not to make a sudden movement, careful as he raised up Harry’s chin so their eyes could do nothing but meet.
And Harry did not shy away, nor lower his eyes, nor give a single inch of ground, physical or mental, as he said, “I need a library.”
Voldemort’s lip quirked. “I have one of those too.”
Ϟ
The young man remained curiously unfrightened of him.
Perhaps it should be frustrating, the lack of fear and the constant sense of irreverence flitting around the young magician like a cloak. Lord Voldemort knew that in another man he would find it infuriating and bring his will to bear down on the behaviour.
For now, however, it felt a moment of great expectation as he slipped the charm over the boy’s head and watched him stand, without hesitation or capitulation, and demand access to the library..
“On three conditions,” he said and bright green eyes narrowed. “Come now, you cannot pretend to misunderstand the significance of such, or the power in bindings of three.”
Harry blew out an irritation breath. “Name them, then.”
“First, you are my guest and, as you yourself have made point of, under the aegis of the marriage veil. You will behave yourself accordingly..”
His mouth twisted, his words like daggers as he drawled sarcastically, “Be the demure little princeling who wouldn’t dare contradict your whims?”
“Yes.”
“And if your people do not follow rules of guesting?”
“They will.” A dark eyebrow rose. “But if they were to harm you it would be handled. Harming you would be as good as violating my word and I would not allow a slight to my honour to go unanswered.” Voldemort smiled. “And I trust you to defend yourself accordingly as well. But do not attack. Bring their slights to me, if you will, but defend only.”
For a moment the wind seemed to whip at them, not the howl of the Hallows but the rage of the man in front of him. “I will have total access to the library.” He nodded and Harry bit out, “Fine.”
“Second, you will allow me to teach you.”
“An hour a day. No more. I’ll be left to my devices for the other hours,” he countered. “I’m not a pretty bauble to be bought.”
Voldemort smiled softly. Not bought, no, but won? Well, they would see how that went, would they not? “Finally, at the end of each day we are bound you will tell me one true thing about the Hallows.”
“One true thing.” Green eyes closed and he slowly breathed out, the creeping sense of watchfulness filling Voldemort’s own sense. “Alright, but only so long as I remain in your home.” His eyes opened and met Voldemort’s own, darker ones calmly. “If you wish to know more I suppose you’ll have to convince me it’s worth staying.”
Yes, fascinating.
“Agreed,” Voldemort said and eased a hand up onto the boy’s shoulder before he kissed him. Harry’s instinctive jerk aborted and his weather-roughened lips parted in surprise but Lord Voldemort could be kind. He pressed no further. “Sealed with a kiss.”
Youthful cheeks, flush with anger and a bit else, warmed Harry’s face. “Don’t do that again.”
“That?” Oh, Voldemort had every intention of doing that again. Someday, soon, the boy would crave it from him.
“Touch me without warning me.”
That gave him pause and he nodded seriously. “As you say. Sleep some now. I’ll keep the bonfire going until dawn.”
He expected a fight but Harry merely nodded, touching the cord around his neck again, and then his reaching for his rucksack. A bone-deep chill pressed over the land, pushing them closer towards the fire, and after a moment of hesitation practicality won out to Voldemort’s surprise. “Would you sit? With your back to the stone here some of the chill will be off you and you’ll gain heat from the fire. Then I can sleep here--” And now he pointed to a spot that would be against, around even, Voldemort’s hip, “-- and neither of us will suffer.”
“Alright.” But Voldemort brought his own pack over, pushing into its extended space carefully as the boy took his too-thin fur roll and pulled it tight around him. “Here.” Voldemort pointed to his thigh. “Lay your head there.” And the boy slowly, frowning, did, and he snapped the bear fur roll over the small frame. “I will keep vigil.”
He heard nothing more on the matter and when he looked down, minutes later, he saw the boy burrowed close, his face peaceful and less weary in sleep
The wind howled in the distance and then the night grew hot and thick around them, the very air feverish, and,
» You will feed my earth, your bones mulch for my creatures, if this boy comes to harm in your care. »
He hummed thoughtfully. “Duly noted.”
Ϟ
He allowed his fingers to carefully trace along the pale throat, considering the Hallows threat. The urge to tighten his hand, squeezing his fingers around that vulnerable flesh rolled through him, destroying the possible threat and battling with the Hallows on his own merits, but…
It seemed such a waste of potential to snuff this life out before it even grew… and it would grow under his care. He’d tend the boy’s gift, encourage it to flourish, encourage the boy to flourish, and reap the rewards.
In the low grass, now that the risen power started to wane, the electrical charge fading slowly, Nagini slithered up to them. §The hatchling has sense.§
“Hmm?”
§You are strong mate. You can protect your nest. Protect your eggs. Protect your hatchlings. That is most important to humans. I have seen this.§
Lord Voldemort bit back on his laughter. He always thought he’d be more a snake in that matter. If he had any young, he did not know of them. He would have provided for them, unlike his own spiteful father, but the raising would be left to the mother.
§I haven’t the patience for hatchlings. Human hatchlings grow slow.§
She hissed, a sound rather than any wordings, and coiled on the young man’s legs. He made sleepy noises. “Whasit?”
§Nagini wishes to share your warmth.§
“Is that her name?” He flailed out one tanned hand and stroked over her neck. “‘Is fine.” He pat her once more and pulled his hand under the furs. Nagini coiled between the other man’s stomach and Voldemort’s own legs, demanding a spell for warming, and went quiet.
For a long time, the king merely watched them, thoughtful at the wizardling’s easy acceptance. Even his most loyal followers, who came with him on his campaign to take the throne, feared Nagini and none would sleep so easily with her so near.
Perhaps this betrothal idea had something to it.
Ϟ
“No.” Harry’s mouth set in a mulish frown and he spun around, the walking stick they’d found somehow waiting for them on the path away from the lake held tightly in one hand.
“Yes.” Voldemort let out a slow breath of frustration. “Think of it as nothing less than what is owed. It is my binding that brings you with me now --”
“It is the Hallow’s wanting that put us on this path.”
“Beyond this path, past the elder tree. Returning to the castle.” Harry grimaced. “And as it is my responsibility I will see you properly outfitted.”
“I like my clothing.”
“I won’t forbid you wear it but you must have some finer things for the court.” He glared again and spun back around, stomping a bit heartily down the path. “You swore.”
He hissed without meaning and muttered, “I regret it already,” but unlike the last two attempts at reason, he did not say ‘no’ so Voldemort graciously pretended he hadn’t heard.
The walk remained silent most of the way, another half hour or so, before the boy stilled and sighed. No wind made movement, as it had shortly after the little wizard rose this morn, No strangely whispering woods. Simple stillness.
And a sigh.
“I can go no further. The elder path is not my own. Go past, alone. I will wait with Nagini until nightfall. If you have not returned by then, you won’t be returning.” Voldemort lifted an inquisitive brow at the strange man but received only a shrug in return. “You were the one who wished to come. The Hallows said to bring you so it probably won’t kill you.”
“How reassuring,” he drawled.
Harry’s lips twitched. “Difficult to reassure fools.” Then, more seriously, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
Voldemort looked down the path, made dark grey in the shade of the late autumn canopy. He’d come seeking nothing but this boy. The words he’d said had come to him in the way the urge to bring that leather cord had come. And though he’d followed that instinct then he could ignore this one now.
» No, Wizard. Your legacy, your claim of master of the darkest of arts. Were those a boast? The claim of a weak child wishing to appear strong?
For a moment a surge of anger raced through him, the desire to tell the Hallows, as ancient and as unknowable as they might be, that he was his own master. But…
It was not a boast. He is a master of magics unheard of for generations and this… In the end, Lord Voldemort never could step down from a challenge of his competency. He would master this too.
» Then walk the path. »
He stepped into the grey light and looked down at the young wizard who’d now taken a seat on a nearby patch of grass. Harry stared steadily back at him until Voldemort turned away, toward the Elder tree, and began to walk.